This has been a really weird week…

• Sunday: I ran 17 miles during the Rock ‘n’ Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon while coaching my Team Challenge team.  That was just a weird and messy event.
• Monday: Complete and utter exhaustion.  It was more mental than physical after my time on the race course the night before.
• Tuesday: 4 miles, this was a really nice run.  I needed a solo run to clear my thoughts.
• Wednesday: Yoga at home
• Thursday: Rest
• Friday: Rest
• Saturday: Rest

Why did I take so many rest days the second half of the week?  Well, I started to feel a little “off”… like the beginning stages of illness but not full-blown yet.  Then I whacked my head really hard and that caused a good-sized lump on my head and persistent neck pain.  Running (or even walking briskly) caused pain in my head and neck.  So I rested.

I was supposed to run a race (a 6.7 mile poker run) on Saturday, but the head bumping prevented that.  I was annoyed at that, but mainly I felt clumsy and embarrassed at this kind of injury preventing me from doing what I wanted.

On Thursday I was on the local CBS news about the race.
http://www.8newsnow.com/global/video/videoplayer.js?rnd=611674;hostDomain=www.8newsnow.com;playerWidth=500;playerHeight=282;isShowIcon=true;clipId=6531507;flvUri=;partnerclipid=;adTag=News;advertisingZone=;enableAds=true;landingPage=;islandingPageoverride=false;playerType=STANDARD_EMBEDDEDscript;controlsType=overlay
Things left out from the interview:
– I have run many races myself and coached groups through 4 races and I’ve never seen an environment like this one.
– People immediately getting sick on the course seems fast for a water-born infection, perhaps there was something the day before or some other explanation?

Jade The Boxer got sick again… just like when she got sick before except we caught it before she ended up with a temperature of 106 and needed hospitalization. She has some kind of infection in her intestines. My guess is that it came from the pile of decomposing leaves in our backyard between the air conditioning units. We’ve been really lazy about cleaning those up… but we picked them all up this weekend. Hopefully that was the answer and we’ve eliminated the root of her troubles. Now if we can just get her to perk up. She’s on antibiotics and a heavy-duty pain med. She’s drinking, eating and eliminating normally… she is just so lethargic. Poor baby girl.

So for the upcoming week my plans are pretty simple:

• Monday: Dahn Yoga
• Tuesday: Run
• Wednesday: Run
• Thursday: Run
• Friday: Yoga
• Saturday: run a 5K
• Sunday: rest

I have zero desire to push myself really hard in training right now!